No matter what your business provides or what industry you belong to, you need to provide quality information on your site or blog. For example, if you provide travel services, it’s a good idea to include useful information from government and foreign travel-related departments, such as news or updates on travel warnings, tips from consulates, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, involves an enormous amount of work and expertise. You have to filter through, research, and organize a ton of information, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure that this information is continually up-to-date. As you can imagine, this is not only a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to continually provide your site readers with up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your site visitors with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Does It Mean?
- RSS, which, according to some definitions is short for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication. It is also often called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually check the website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the feed and keep feed subscribers up-to-date.
- Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog posts, news headlines, music playlists, etc., which users can choose to subscribe to.
- RSS feed content can be read using a web-based, desktop-based, and even mobile-based software-based program called a feedreader, or feed aggregator. Feed readers can be used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content (and updates made to the content) online.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feedreaders. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF (RDF = Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different devices and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine multiple RSS feeds to receive news and updates from several different sources.
This in-depth article explains how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful (and legitimate) way to share content online. RSS Feeds provide a simple and easy way for web users to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different sites.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
Most news reporting agencies and many popular online publications use syndication to publish content from news agencies around the world.
Content syndication allows leading news reporting agencies to deliver readers the latest news and content from around the globe without actually having to employ more content writers in every place around the world …
(Online newspapers and many highly-visited media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information. Online newspapers syndicate information using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by online newspapers to share content with other news publications)
Most websites actually want you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the site that originally created theoriginally created and published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate significant web traffic.
Most digital publishers include a feed section (look for menu links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “international herald tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many news reporting agencies and major content sites include an RSS feed section. Source: Sydney Morning Herald RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different content sections of the site …
(RSS feeds list. Source: nytimes.com)
These feeds give readers access to content about different sections of the website (e.g. technology news, arts news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain further feed subdirectories …
(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. To use feeds, all you need to do is to copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using Feeds – Benefits
Adding someone else’s content to your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives additional exposure online to someone else’s business, it also adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(Syndicating Content Has Many Benefits!)
While adding feeds from another site is a great way to add content to your site that you don’t have to create, it’s a great idea to try and get other sites to use YOUR content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your content, this gives you the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Consider trying to get visitors to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
About Your WordPress Feed
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your theme, there are a number of ways to get your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display in a navigation menu, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta widget – Entries RSS)
2) You can also find built-in links or buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can simply copy the feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On many sites and again, depending on your WordPress theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Social Share, Link To Us, or Subscribe section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Social Share, Follow Us, or Links toolbar section)
4) You can also view your WordPress RSS feed by typing your site’s URL into a browser and adding “/feed” after the URL, e.g.:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your site is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your site’s feed …
(RSS feed entries viewed with a Firefox web browser)
Note that your feed items will display differently depending on the web browser you use …
(Feed items seen using Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many items you want displayed in your RSS section, by going to your Reading Settings section and selecting the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WordPress Reading Settings – Syndication items setting)
Your feed will show the number of items you have specified section …
(The feed will show the number of items you have specified in the Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in the Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display articles as full text, or just as a summary …
(WP Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts affect how content in feeds will appear)
For a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view a feed’s content, you need to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website whose feed you want to syndicate and search for an RSS feed section using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for an RSS feed button. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
How To Add RSS Feeds To WordPress Sites
In the example below, we are going to add content from another site’s RSS feeds to your WordPress site.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could display on your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding their RSS feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, social media comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area)
First, go to a site containing content that you would like to add to your site and copy its feed URL …
(Copy the feed URL)
Next, paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your website in your browser. The content from the RSS feed should appear in the sidebar (or wherever you have added the RSS widget – e.g. footer, custom menu, etc) …
(RSS Widget)
Add Your WordPress RSS Feed To Search Consoles
You can add your WordPress RSS feed to Google and Bing’s search consoles. This will help them index your content faster.
(WordPress RSS feed added to Google Search Console)
Adding your site’s RSS feed to search consoles is simple, fast, easy, and requires no technical skills. For a step-by-step tutorial, go here:
Adding Feed Content To Your Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to WordPress posts? Yes, it can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Search inside the Plugins admin screen for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ screen – RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us if you need assistance with plugin configuration.
Here are some plugins you can check out that allow you to add RSS feeds to your content:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you choose.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize feeds according to categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension is an advanced, feature-rich importer that allows you to import RSS feeds directly into your WP posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer WP Plugin)
RSS Post Importer allows you to import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full text RSS feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of each item in your feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WP Plugin)
POWr RSS Feed lets you combine and display content from a number of different content using RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom colors, fonts, borders, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in all languages.
The premium version contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, manually accept or reject posts, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a versatile Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress.
As stated in the FeedWordPress site …
FeedWordPress is an open-source Atom/RSS aggregator for the WordPress blog publishing platform. You set up feeds that you choose, and FeedWordPress syndicates posts from those sources into your WordPress posts table, where they can be displayed by your WordPress templates like any other post — but with additional meta-data, so that your templates can properly attribute the post to the source it came from.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator site (sites that combine and display content from various different sources), or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages)
Install a plugin like RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed and not just posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of comments posted on your site.
You can see these comments by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar menu (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed entries displayed with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Comments feed items seen on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Note: If the Meta section is not displaying on your theme, you can view the Comments RSS section of your site by opening up a browser and typing in the following URL:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/comments/feed
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/comments/feed (if your WP installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating Specific Post RSS Feeds
Being able to display an RSS feed for single post items can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific items to RSS aggregator sites, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for making an RSS feed for specific post items is shown below:
(Feed For Single Post Item)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on your post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content from one or two post categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your website displays content published under several categories, you can provide a separate feed for each different category.
All you have to do is use the format below:
(WordPress RSS feed format for category)
Select and copy the category URL …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for category)
The RSS feed will now only contain content published in that particular category …
(Category feed)
The WordPress Codex also provides different ways to create feeds not just for post categories, but also feeds for tags, authors, search, etc.
For this example, let’s create a feed for a specific post category using the format shown below:
(Post Category feed format. Source: WordPress Codex)
Here is the feed format WordPress recommends using. In this example, the post category ID is ’42’. We’ll need to replace the post category ID and the domain name …
(WordPress post category feed format)
To find the post category ID, go to Posts > Categories …
(Posts > Categories menu)
Locate the post category you want and hover your mouse over the title to reveal its unique ID …
(Post Category ID)
In our example, the post category ID is ’29’ and the post category feed format we need to use for this specific category with our domain name looks like this …
(Post category feed format with domain name and ID)
Copy and paste the feed into your browser and hit enter …
(Paste the feed into your browser)
This will display the feed for that specific category …
(RSS feed of a specific post category)
Note that in this example, WordPress automatically converted the feed format we pasted into the browser into the category feed we had used in the previous section of this tutorial …
(Post category feed format)
Here is the feed format again …
(Post category feed)
In this case, the simplest way to create additional feeds for specific categories is to simply change the post category slug …
(Change the post category slug to create a new category specific feed)
Paste the edited feed into your web browser and hit enter to display the content for that specific category’s feed …
(Post category feed content)
Now that you have a method for creating feeds for specific post categories (or tags, authors, etc.), you can even create a directory or list of individual feeds for visitors.
Tip #4 – Provide Your Own List Of RSS Feeds For Your Subscribers
You can create your own page of RSS feeds that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in, just like large authoritative sites …
(Set Up An RSS Feeds List)
You can also link a button like the one shown below to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of all your category feeds on a new page …
(RSS button. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
To learn more about inserting tables into WordPress content, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS – Additional Notes
You can customize RSS in several ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of feed formats without touching code. For example, the table below contains some of the kinds of feed formats you can use and how to create these feeds …
(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments posted on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing a specific post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Includes the latest comments made on a post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/07/07/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes the latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays the latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to let your site visitors know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ button or link in a visible location …
(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other sites will only subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add great content from other sites and get online users to subscribe to your content using RSS feeds!)
If you need help coming up with content ideas subscribe to our FREE content creation course using the form below:
Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed 🙂
RSS – Additional Resources:
- Download RSS Graphics – Visit Feedicons or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS icon”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here to learn more about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about the benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress.org – Official WordPress documentation and reference site. Go here for more information about using RSS feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via RSS.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you expand your business online. To read more about the benefits of using the WP CMS platform please click on links to visit our related posts section.
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com